In spiritual direction, I often remind people suffering with the scrupulous disorder of a simple truth: scrupulosity thrives only in the future or in the past; it cannot thrive in the present moment, because there is no oxygen to energize the anxiety or whatever dominant feelings might be expressed. This may seem very obvious, but it is not. OCD rumination—fear of the past or concern for the future—is highly manipulated, exaggerated, and seemingly truthful, becoming so powerful as to make it believable, all the while discarding the present moment as the healthy choice.
From a non-spiritual perspective, when someone attempts to enter the present moment and focus his or her attention and concern on that moment, it is often identified as mindfulness. It can be helpful to understand the practice of mindfulness in this manner, but I believe this description to be incomplete, as mindfulness is often presented as a gimmick or perhaps as something “New Age” or from a foreign religious practice. This is unfortunate, because trying to live in the present moment is very spiritual. It is the core principle of a contemplative religious practice—a healthy practice fueled by grace.
The present moment is also something of the divine; it is a real connection between divinity and humanity. In fact, the present moment is the dwelling place of God. God is in the present moment. God is the present moment. God is the Eternal Now.
When we say God is the Eternal Now, we mean that God is timeless. We mean that in God, there is no future and no past; there is only the present. At the same time—and this is where the concept stretches the human mind and human understanding—all of the past and all of the future, in their entirety, are in the Eternal Now. For divinity, it simply is. For humanity, it is simply unknown—a mystery, if you will. It cannot be understood; it must simply be accepted and hopefully celebrated.
From a Christian perspective, when the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became a human being, he freely entered time and assumed a past and a future while living a present reality in his day-to-day life. This is what Scripture means when it proclaims that Jesus became like us in all ways, “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus set aside, so to speak, the Eternal Now and freely embraced the full experience of humanity. How this happened is beyond our understanding. That it did happen is the core belief of Christian faith and life.
When, fueled by scrupulosity, we resist the present moment and drown ourselves in the future or the past, we effectively deprive ourselves of our connection with God. This deprivation is what makes us fearful, anxious, shameful, and worried. It is what fuels the disordered thinking and logic of scrupulosity. If, on the other hand, we strive to enter the present moment, we are no longer deprived of the presence of God. We hear God, who knows all things (including our entire story), say to us, “You are my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” There can be no other blessing, no other judgment, no other reality.
We cannot earn this blessing. We cannot merit this gift. It comes to us from a generous God. We can, however, learn to celebrate it and to live it each day. In fact, it becomes our motivation to do good and to choose what is right, not out of fear but out of love.
For a person who strives to live in the present moment, the prayer of St. Paul the Apostle in his First Letter to the Corinthians (13:4-8a), is descriptive of our lived reality:
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
The words of the apostle effectively claim the birthright of each child of God, confronting the garbage thinking that is generated by the scrupulous disorder. If we want to both hear and experience these words of power and truth, we need to look no further than the present moment, the Eternal Now.
Whenever I hear a condemning or judgmental word in my head, I do not react to the garbage; I remind myself of the truth of who I am as a child of God. Whenever I encounter on social media (and, unfortunately, I do) so-called preachers and teachers of the Word of God who peddle nonsense, conditions, rules, and regulations, and who “tie up heavy burdens [hard to carry] and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:4), I remind myself that I am blessed, not cursed.
All scrupulous people understand both compulsion and obsession. All scrupulous people understand the feeling of helplessness when they are trapped in the uncompromising rituals of the scrupulous condition. I know that each person who is suffering with this terrible disorder understands that scrupulosity generates lies. Scrupulosity is incapable of telling the truth. In fact, the only truthful thing about scrupulosity is that it is not true. It is never true. It is always dishonest.
No matter how helpless and hopeless a scrupulous person might feel, there is real hope. I understand, and I believe that each of you also understands, that we cannot effectively combat the disorder in the future or the past, or in the endless questions that scrupulosity generates, or in the details that scrupulosity demands. It is only in the present moment, safe in the arms and in the heart of the Eternal Now, that we may find peace, comfort, and joy.